Kip Jones

KIP JONES, an American by birth, has been studying and working in the UK for more than 19 years. Under the umbrella term of 'arts-based research', his main efforts have involved developing tools from the arts and humanities for use by social scientists in research and its impact on a wider public or a Perfomative Social Science.

Jones is Reader in Performative Social Science and Director of the Centre for Qualitative Researchat Bournemouth University. Kip has produced films and written many articles for academic journals and authored chapters for books on topics such as masculinity, ageing and rurality, and older LGBT citizens. His ground-breaking use of qualitative methods, including biography and auto-ethnography, and the use of tools from the arts in social science research and dissemination are well-known.

Jones acted as Author and Executive Producer of the award-winning short film, RUFUS STONE, funded by Research Councils UK. The film is now available for free viewing on the Internet and has been viewed by more than 13,000 people in 150 countries.

Areas of expertise• Close relationships, culture and ethnicity• Social psychology, sociology• Ageing, self and identity• Interpersonal processes, personality, individual differences, social networks, prejudice and stereotyping• Sexuality and sexual orientation• Creativity and the use of the arts in Social Science

Media experienceHis work has been reported widely in the media, including:BBC Radio 4,BBC TV news,Times Higher Education, Sunday New York Times, International Herald-Tribune and The Independent.

Monday, 23 December 2013

A
four-year research project at Bournemouth University, “Gay and Pleasant
Land?—a study about positioning, ageing and gay life in rural South
West England and Wales”, took place as part of the Research Councils
UK-funded New Dynamics of Ageing Programme on ageing in 21st Century
Britain. The key output of this effort was the short professionally
made, award-winning film RUFUS STONE1. I acted as Project Lead and Author and Executive Producer for the film. The
research project’s methods included narrated biography, visual
ethnography, auto-ethnography, focus group work and theatrical
improvisation of interview data.In the process of refining the treatment for the film, the Director (Josh Appignanesi)
and I faced several obstacles revolving around plot. If the premise was
that Rufus would return to his boyhood village after 50 years in exile,
there needed to be a reason for that journey backed up by research to
support it. Subsequently,
I returned to the interview data for more detail (‘evidence’) to
support the reasons (‘theory’) for the return of Rufus Stone. I further
explored and elaborated both Rufus’ story as a lad and his
decision-making as an adult, always constructing these ‘facts’ from
stories which were told to us whilst carrying out the research.Both the film and this short story are fiction, or what I prefer to call ‘fictive reality’. Fictive
reality is conceived as the ability to engage in imaginative and
creative invention while remaining true to the remembered realities as
told through the narrations of others. Several, in fact, may recount a similar incident. When these reports are combined into one person’s story or a “composite” character, a “fiction” is born (Jones, 2013). By
returning to this material to write “The Return of Rufus Stone”, I am
creating a ‘prequel’ to the film RUFUS STONE. It is a reworking and
refinement of those early writings. By becoming a short story, it
fine-tunes the detail by focusing on the reasons for Rufus’ return as
literature. Rufus Stone’s reappearance in his boyhood village after 50
years of exile sets up the possibilities for the characters to remember,
reassess and even potentially change. This short story explains how
that journey became possible.Read the story here * This story was first published on 22 Dec 2013 on the SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION website, Mark Carrigan, ed. Watch the film here: https://vimeo.com/109360805

'Kip Jones brings the genre of what he calls performative social sciences forward with wide-ranging theoretical, academic, and artistic products in a various media that takes up how social scientists can use art for investigation and dissemination.'

About Me

I am an expert in biographic narrative intperpretive method and performative social science.

My greatest strength is my ability to get people involved—even excited—about the possibilities of creative human interactions, knowledge-sharing and the potential of qualitative social science endeavours.

An American by birth, I have been studying and working in the UK for the past 15 years and travelling throughout Europe to learn and engage. Part of my work has involved developing tools from the arts and humanities for use by social scientists in dissemination of qualitative data.

Recognition

What they say at JISC:Kip’s blog, ‘KIPWORLD’, covers a wide range of topics from advice on writing a PhD thesis to insight into his creative process. He regularly uses his blog, Facebook and Twitter to share his research (with) others. Kip also contributes to the LSE Impact blog, LSE Review of Books, Discover Society, Sociological Imagination, Creative Quarter, The Creativity Post and the Bournemouth University Research Blog.

Creative Commons

Watch RUFUS STONE now!

Watch award-winning, research-based short biopic, RUFUS STONE live on the Internet.
“This film is as good as most Oscar-nominated shorts, and vastly superior to many. In my opinion, it is just about as good as a short film gets.” –Patricia Leavy, The Qualitative Report
Nominated for the AHRC Anniversary Prize for Research in Film, the Jury remarked:'Beautifully made, lyrical and moving and packs a complete narrative arc into its short span.'

5 Minutes with Kip Jones

Kip Jones at LSE Literary Fest

Kip Jones was a member of the panel at the LSE Review of Books hosted event as part of the 5th LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival, entitled, "Beyond the Book: new forms of academic communication". Kip spoke on “Performative Social Science: What it is and how it started” then joined the panel for a lively Q&A session. A podcast of the event is now available.